As part of a more comprehensive discipline system at our school, an ideal, discovered through research somewhere no doubt, has been tossed around. The ideal says that a teacher should deliver 4 positive comments to a student for every negative comment. This has caused some teachers to contemplate how that might look in practice, especially with those students who tend to be a bit more challenging to keep a positive attitude towards. Since we are a cynical group, the wondering out loud has turned into some tongue in cheek practice.
“Billy, your hair looks really nice today.”
“Hey, I like the daring way you wear shorts in the middle of winter.”
“Thank you for not insulting me this morning, that was really kind.”
“The way you avoided using profanity just now, showed great restraint.”
“That was great use of a period at the end of that one-sentence paragraph.”
Of course we understand the benefits of praising our students rather than putting them down, and the teachers joking about it are generally teachers that already have positive relationships with students. But sometimes reducing behaviors to data diminishes the intended result. If I try to stay mindful of the ratio, simply for the sake of maintaining the ratio, I begin making “positive” comments that are meaningless. Compliments become empty, especially if I don’t mean them and don’t believe them to be true. Words can be powerful, but they can also be nothing more than puffs of air.
I used to have a principal who believed in the power of positive comments. Each time he would visit a classroom, he would follow it with a “special note” in our box designed to encourage us as teachers. Generally he would praise our work and tell us how valuable we were to the school. At first I thought it was kind of cool, but over time the sentences and phrases appeared to be recycled and every note started to sound the same. One day I was in another teacher’s room and on the desk was a “special note” from the principal. It was almost identical, word-for-word, to the “special note” I had just received. It didn’t take long before the “special notes” became just more clutter in my box. Their frequency and seeming lack of genuineness, diluted their impact - they seemed forced and contrived. I’m sure he maintained the 4 to 1 ratio, but the positive words became meaningless.
Much is made of encouragement and I understand that I have a great deal of room for improvement in this area of my life, but I wonder if we often see encouragement too narrowly. We often try to reduce encouragement to words of praise. In 2 Timothy Paul combines encouragement with the words “correct” and “rebuke.” He pairs it with “rebuke” again in Titus and tells Titus to “encourage the young men to be self-controlled.” In Hebrews we are told to be encouraged that we will be disciplined by God like a father disciplines his son. And frequently Paul says that he is encouraged by those that he is writing, not because they praised him, but because they are simply living out what he taught them - living godly lives.
Words of praise are great, but they are also quick and easy and only one aspect of encouragement. Words of praise may not “encourage young men to be self-controlled,” that might also take some other words, spoken firmly, but in love. Discipline is not always fun, sometimes it is downright painful, but it encourages us to do what is right. Even a rebuke can be encouraging if it is done in love and by someone we respect. It may not seem encouraging at first, but I know from experience, as time passes, I am encouraged that another cared enough to say the hard thing that no one else would. Jesus did not always “encourage” his disciples with lofty words of praise. In fact, if he wasn’t Jesus, we might say he was, at times, rather insulting to them. How many times did he say, in effect, “why are you so dense that you still don’t get it?”
I tend to not think of myself as an encourager because I tend to be rather negative. I seem to have a gift (or curse) for seeing what is wrong. Some would call me a “glass is half empty” kind of guy. I guess I would see myself much the same, but I don’t think of that as entirely bad. If I only focus on the fact that the glass is half empty, then certainly that can be discouraging, but if I see the empty half of the glass as a problem and work to fill it, that can be encouraging. People who are not content with a half full glass are the people who are the entrepreneurs, risk takers and innovators of our world. They are incredibly encouraging to be around, but they are not often filled with praises for others who are content with the status quo of a half full glass. The trick is to move from obsession with the emptiness of the glass to action that will fill it up - it is only then that it becomes encouraging. But it is then that encouragement might also be paired with rebuke and discipline and firm words, rather than words of praise. There might be temporary pain and anguish, but if done right (especially with passion tempered with love and compassion) there can be long term encouragement that far exceeds shallow words of praise.
